Court Rejects Grove Owner`s Challenge Of Citrus Burning

January 10, 1985|By John Mulliken, Staff Writer

A state appellate court Wednesday rejected a West Palm Beach lawyer`s arguments that the state had no right to destroy trees in his Hardee County citrus grove unless it was proven the trees were infected with citrus canker.

The First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee issued a written opinion that the state Department of Agriculture has the authority to destroy trees that were exposed to citrus canker even if the state had no evidence of actual infection.

Earl and Lynn Denny, West Palm Beach residents who own Shady Grove in rural Hardee County, had fought the state-ordered burning of 3,500 citrus trees that had been purchased from a nursery where the canker bacteria had been found.

Denny, a lawyer, was in Miami on Wednesday for an unrelated case and could not be reached for comment.

The grove owners contended their constitutional right to due process had been violated because the state had failed to show that their plants were, in fact, infected with canker.

The three-judge panel, however, concluded the agency had sufficient cause in the public interest to destroy plants exposed to the disease.

``No real controversy exists on the critical fact that citrus canker may be transmitted by both natural (wind and rain) and artificial (man and machinery) means and that it may lay dormant in apparently healthy plants for some months . . . after exposure to infected plants before manifesting signs of the disease,`` the court said in an unsigned opinion.

Robert Chastain, chief attorney for the state Department of Agriculture, said Wednesday`s court action was the first written opinion in nine cases where tree owners were fighting the state eradication program.

``This should set the precedent,`` said Chastain.

In the Shady Grove case, Chastain said, the court ruled in November that the state could proceed with the burning, but agreed to issue a written opinion.

Chastain added that all trees involved in the nine cases where owners have challenged the eradication technique have already been burned, even though some of the cases are still pending.

The court noted that it was not taking a position on the questions of compensation due the grove owners.

Thus far, the state has destroyed between 4 million and 5 million young trees in the effort to wipe out canker.